Skip to main content
q1uant
New Member
August 7, 2024
Question

Fortinet has sold us the wrong product, any ideas?

  • August 7, 2024
  • 3 replies
  • 1116 views

We are deploying 120 switches and want to use L2 FortiLink for the convenience of not having to configure all the VLANs and trunking manually, also we want to use the NAC lite on FortiGates for some basic NAC features. Now a small Fortigate cannot manage such a number of switches, thus we have been recommended the FortiSwitchManager.

Now that it's deployed, we have noticed it only does L3 Fortilink (only management, no NAC or VLANs).

Any ideas of how to manage all those 120 switches according to our needs? The only solution we found was to buy a 1000F or higher because they can manage up to 196 switches or a VM08 since it can manage up to 300 switches according to the max value table.

Thank you for any ideas

3 replies

AEK
SuperUser
SuperUser
August 7, 2024

If you want to manage it that way then I think there is no other solution that a well sized FortiGate.

AEK
abelio
SuperUser
SuperUser
August 7, 2024

Hello q1uant

I' d recommend work more closely with your Fortinet partner before make purchasing decisions

Partners have direct access to Fortinet SEs, and both will advise you with the right equipment sizing for your specific scenario

 

ebilcari
Staff
Staff
August 7, 2024

This will relay heavily on the type of deployment and network requirements, but you can start exploring FortiNAC. It's a full NAC solution that can work also with switches in standalone mode and in addition to visibility and many other features, it can do VLAN assignments directly via CLI/API or using RADIUS.

 

salone.PNG

Emirjon
Thought Leadership Security Summit. Outpace New Threats with AI - enhanced defense. Tuesday, Septmeber 15, 8:30 AM - 2:30 PM PT. The Golf Club at Newcastle, WA.
Fortinet Flag the Hack. Wednesday, August 26, 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM ET, COSM, Atlanta, GA.